Page:The Yellow Book - 05.djvu/35

Rh "Oh," I said, "have you ever by chance mentioned that to her?"

"Eh? What?" answered Basil, absently, for, as his manner was, he was drifting away on some underground stream of his own thoughts. "Mentioned it? I don't recollect. I daresay I have. Probably I must have done. Why do you ask?"

"Well," said I, "because if she knew you could not answer the question that might account for her not asking it."

But he was already lost in reverie, and I did not feel justified in rousing him from it for no worthier purpose than that of hinting suspicion of the disinterestedness of a blood relation.

In due time—or at least in what the survivors considered due time, though I don't suppose the poor old gentleman so regarded it—Basil's uncle died, and the nephew found himself the heir to a snug little fortune of about £900 a year. As soon as he was in possession of it he wrote to Eleanor, acquainting her with the change in his circumstances, and renewing his declaration of love, accompanied this time with a proposal of immediate marriage. I happened to look in upon him at his chambers on the evening of the day on which the letter had been despatched, and he told me what he had done.

"Ah!" said I, "now, then, we shall see which of us is right. But no," I added, on a moment's reflection, "after all, it won't prove anything; for I suppose we both agree that she is likely to accept you now, and I can't deny that she can do so with perfect propriety."

Basil looked at me as from a great height, a Gulliver conversing with a Lilliputian.

"Dear old Jack," he said, after a few moments of obviously amused silence, "you are really most interesting. What makes you think she will say Yes?"

Rh